The Latest & Greatest

Albert Einstein's letter coming up at auction: Does it show that he was an atheist? (I think that's just a publicity ploy.)

In an essay in Times Higher Education, Dennis Hayes - who admits to being an academic - thinks that the public's low opinion of academics will not change until the academics open themselves up to more active debate:

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In "It May Be 2008 at Home, But in the Academy It's 1984", columnist Ken Connor alludes to George Orwell's prescient post-World War II novel Nineteen Eighty Four - about a world where you love the Big Brother who totally controls your miserable life so you can never have an unapproved thought:

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I just received this item via a friend at Biola University:

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Dear Science Teachers and Professors,

You are invited to attend Biola's 2008 Science Teacher Symposium: Intelligent Design after Expelled.

Presented by Biola University's M.A. Program in Science and Religion
Thursday July 17, 2008, 8:00 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Biola University
Friday, July 18, 2008, 8:30 a.m. - 4:45 p.m., Biola University

According to a recent article by Bob Holmes in New Scientist "Ghost of genetics past shows up in bonobos" (18 April 2008), "The genomes of our nearest kin, chimpanzees and bonobos, are strewn with anomalies where the usual patterns of relatedness break down. As a result,

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If you are following the saga of the Expelled film (currently #5 in political documentaries and grossing $7,274,318), you may well wonder which documentaries are ahead of Expelled? Here they are:

1 Fahrenheit 9/11 $119,194,771 6/23/04
2 Sicko $24,540,079 6/22/07

The almost-retirement of David Attenborough from BBC-style documentary film (he's 81) has been treated as the end of an era. In "Attenborough ends nature TV cycle, fears for future," Mike Collett-White recounts,

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Dinesh D'Souza's comments on animal rights ethicist Peter Singer make Ben Stein look bland. And he is getting LOTS of comments, too. (Next time I will remember to bring a feather to knock myself over with.)

The Spiritual Brain shortlisted for three Write! Canada awards

Was one woman who lived 150,000 to 200,000 years ago the ancestress of all of us? Science may not be sure, but pop culture is.

Part One: Our Mitochondria: A piece in the puzzle of our origins?

Part Two: What does our mitochondrial DNA say about human ancestry?

Expelling astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez called one of Iowa State University's missteps

No one makes a big-budget movie about faith-and-science bores

Fun with David Berlinski: The Devil sketches what we do not know